


And In Between is Gravity

by great_whatsit



Category: Harper (1966)
Genre: M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26338912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/great_whatsit/pseuds/great_whatsit
Summary: Lew and Albert have known one another for a long, long time. Lew's always been sort of a mess, but it turns out that Albert, too, is still working some stuff out.
Relationships: Lew Harper/Albert Graves
Kudos: 1





	And In Between is Gravity

Albert likes Lew more than Lew likes himself, and they both know it. It’s been true for more than 20 years, and it’ll be true for 20 more, assuming Lew manages to live that long. It was hard, at first, for Albert to know what to make of Lew -- this skinny, prickly, irritatingly handsome American in a tie but no uniform, who was charming but seemed to despise himself for it. He had labored to rub Albert the wrong way, teasing without much humor about the sharp creases in his uniform trousers, making cracks about polite Canadians, and asking whether or not they introduced themselves and asked permission before firing upon Nazi planes. Albert just laughed and wondered why Lew was working so hard to undermine his own blinding charisma. Then he just bought Lew another drink.

Eventually, Albert wore Lew down and was accepted as something like a friend. (It broke Albert’s heart a little, later, when he realized that all he’d had to do was not leave -- that sticking around was all it took to win Lew over.) They drank together. A lot. There was a war on, after all, so their options were limited. Lew would disappear, sometimes, often for weeks on end, but he’d always reappear eventually, sitting at the far end of their favorite bar, like he’d never left. Lew never told him where he’d been or what he’d been up, and Albert never asked. He figured he’d rather not know -- military intelligence was dangerous business at the best of times, and he wanted the freedom to assume Lew was in just the usual, garden variety danger, and not putting himself at very specific, espionage-related risk.

They drank together, and they chased girls together. Well, they “chased girls.” Albert’s heart was in it, more or less, but he couldn’t really get his head around casual sex with a stranger -- Lew hadn’t been totally wrong about polite Canadians, turns out -- and those constant reminders from the military about willing ladies with both the clap _and_ bad intentions didn’t exactly reassure him. It was easier for Lew. He could, as the saying goes, charm the pants off of anyone he met, and he did it with the expected regularity. But Albert could tell Lew was just going through the motions, almost as if it was a lesson he’d learned by rote, and which by now could be replicated on command. It took Albert months to figure out what was going on, but eventually he put it together: Lew's drunken, almost obligatory narratives about eager, beautiful girls. The tight-lipped, fake smile he’d wear when people joked about faggots in the Army, and how you could spot them from miles away. The way he’d sometimes let his eyes linger on the dark-haired, striking airman who drank in their bar from time to time, and how that airman (Cameron. His name was Cameron.) got to see Lew’s real smile, while none of the girls ever did.

Albert didn’t feel it was right to ask Lew, particularly given how hard Lew still worked to find reasons to push people away. But he thought about it a lot and eventually realized, to his mild surprise, that he didn’t care who Lew wanted to fuck. He also realized that he just wanted Lew to be happy, which was a horrifyingly motherly thing for a 24-year-old man to find going through his head, even if that man was a very polite Canadian.

So Albert didn’t ask. He didn’t say anything. But he did find excuses to leave when the airman appeared, answering Lew’s quizzical frowns with grins and big, performative waves at people across the room who weren't actually there, but with whom he nevertheless had urgent business. And he’d sometimes ask after Cameron, just for the sheer novelty of watching his perpetually pissed off friend trying not to smile -- really smile. Lew would glare (blue eyes full of something like heat), mutter something about how could he know such a thing, he’s not Cameron’s keeper, and try to hide his face behind his glass. In spite of himself (and the law, and the military, and the world) Lew was happy. And so Albert was happy too.

+++

Albert is Lew’s best man when he marries Susie. He calms Lew down when he needs it, reassures him when he wavers and, like he’s always done, simply refuses to leave. He stays by Lew’s side throughout the weekend, grounding Lew, reminding him that, despite what he tells himself, he is lovable, and Albert is evidence of that. Susie is evidence of that.

+++

Albert thinks Lew is probably a better person when he’s around. Listening to Susie talk about him, listening to Lew talk about himself -- in their stories, Lew always chooses the wrong path when he comes to the inevitable fork (in the evening, in the interaction, in the relationship). It’s like he’s forcing himself to be the cold, cruel person he considers himself, choosing over and over to compound bad choices by doubling down on them, and then doubling down again. By the time Lew looks up, he’s always so far past the point of no return that fixing things is already impossible. And so he can nod and conclude, again, that he’s the heartless, worthless guy that he is in his head.

When Albert is there, though, Lew slows down. He relaxes. Albert can almost see him think about his choices, and makes room for a little softness (a moment here, a moment there) without despising himself for daring to feel. And things are better. Lew is better -- there’s more humanity in him, more acceptance of himself and who he is. He’s still a bastard, of course. That’s also part of who he is. But he’s a more stable bastard. One who thinks. One who smiles with a little light in his eyes. One who laughs with a little warmth in the sound. This is the Lew that Albert’s come to think of as ‘his.’

+++

It’s Albert Lew calls when Susie kicks him out. The first time, the second time, and all the times after, so many that Albert loses count. Albert listens, Albert buys the drinks, Albert drives him home, Albert puts his arm around Lew’s narrow shoulders, propping him up, holding him close, and trying not to worry about how skinny his friend has become. Reminding Lew he’s worthy of love. Albert also points out to Lew that he’s an asshole, and that he’s treating Susie like shit and that she _should_ be kicking him out. (Lew stopped arguing after the fifth time.) Albert never says anything about Cameron, or any other boys, and he watches Lew with a heavy heart, wishing he would let himself be who he is. (Albert eventually realizes that when Lew says “I know, Albert, I know. Just leave it, alright?,” he's also talking about all the things Albert isn’t saying.)

It’s Albert Susie calls when she kicks Lew out, the fourth time, the fifth time, and a half dozen times after that. They never meet, they just talk. Albert tells her she has every right to kick Lew out, and that she doesn’t have to take his disrespect, or to live with a man who refuses to care about himself. And when she asks him if Lew is gay, Albert freezes, listening to the hum down the line, thinking he can hear Susie’s stillness. “I know, Albert,” she sighs. “I know.”

+++

And so they grow up. Together, sometimes, but also apart, separated by a long stretch of California freeway. Lew is a cop, until he’s not; Albert an ADA aiming for the governor’s mansion, until suddenly he’s not. Their lives flatten out. Lew mostly chases down adulterers and does dirty little errands for people with enough money to hire PIs to pay off blackmailers. Albert is a lawyer for the kind of people who hire Lew — he gets more of their money and feels cleaner, sort of, but they’re both keenly aware of the distance between their youthful aspirations and their small, often seedy lives.

Albert never marries. He gets wild crushes every six months or so, always on women either far too young for him, or well out of his league. Lew alternately mocks and soothes Albert while he moons over them, Lew so familiar with the rhythms of Albert’s romantic clock that he can predict, almost to the day, when each infatuation will flame out. And, when it inevitably does, they go out for steak (Albert pays) and drinks (Lew pays for those), and Albert's Lew is suddenly by his side. Albert sometimes wonders if anyone else sees his Lew: the teasing, unpredictable, hard-headed one that Lew so carefully protects.

After Susie, Lew gives up on marriage. And he’s still an asshole, particularly to women. (It’s obvious to Albert, now, that Lew wants to eliminate even the slightest chance that one might express interest in him.) Albert still doesn’t ask — he feels like, if he was going to, the time has long since passed — but Lew sometimes lets pronouns slips when he talks about dates (nothing “slips” out of Lew; Albert knows this is as close to saying it out loud as Lew will ever come) and, every once in a great while, he’ll comment on men’s looks like it’s the most natural thing in the world for them, a look of exaggerated innocence in his eyes, his poker face firmly in place. Albert would never admit it out loud, but every time Lew says “he,” or “his,” or “boy, would you look at him!”, he feels this rush of pride that he gets to know — that Lew trusts him with this huge thing that Lew himself still struggles to accept.

+++

Then everything comes unstuck, a little, when the thing with the Sampsons happens. The things. All of the terrible things with the Sampsons. It’s as if a great hand has lifted their little world and given it a shake.

Albert’s crush on Miranda Sampson expires right on time, just as Lew’s monumental one her whatever-he-is — the boy Lew calls “Beauty” — flares into existence. But then Beauty tried to kill Lew so Albert shot the beautiful boy, right there in Lew’s arms. And then Albert loses himself a little and shoots Ralph Sampson, too. Friendship aside, Lew has to turn Albert in. Of course he does. So Albert pretends that he might shoot Lew, just to stop him.

But Albert could never shoot Lew, and Lew could never turn him in, so Lew just turns around, comes back, and starts the car. Albert is jittery, like there are little charges traveling across his skin; his clothes feel like too much; the air is wrong; he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. But Lew says “Albert, shut up,” in the tone that doesn’t allow for disagreement, so he does.

Albert doesn’t know where they’re going, but he knows there’s no other place he ought to be. His leg bounces and his brain whirs as they speed through the night — too fast, always too fast with Lew. Albert remembers how Lew’s face had looked the moment he realized Beauty was gone. And when he turned to see Albert with his gun, and knew who had done it. How Lew’s back had looked when Albert looked at it, down the barrel of his pistol. How he could see in Lew’s shoulders when he decided no to tell anyone what Albert had done — how he’d seen them lift, like he’d set down a terrible weight. Thinking about what it meant, what Lew had done. And what it meant, what Albert had done. Or not done. What they had both not done. The air feels weird. He picks at a hangnail, just to occupy his hands.

“Alright, Albert.” Lew sounds disgusted; Albert’s not sure which one of them the disgust is for. “Jesus, I can hear you thinking. Spit it out.”

Albert didn’t even know he wanted to ask until it’s out of his mouth, but then he realizes he’s had the question rattling around in his head for the better part of two decades. “Lew, would you- would you, with me- ? If I was ... ?” It’s a little hard to breathe.

Lew barks a bitter laugh and stares ahead. Even in the dark, he looks tired. It makes Albert hurt. “If you were what, Albert? A faggot like me?”

Albert wants to reach for Lew, but he’s not quite brave enough. Instead, he gives a tiny nod and goes still. Lew says nothing else; they drive on in silence.

**Author's Note:**

> The first time I watched this movie, I actively disliked it. But then I started thinking about Lew CONSTANTLY calling Robert Wagner's character "Beauty", and what a dick he is to The Hot Girl, and the way he talks about himself to soon-to-be-ex, and what a disaster he is when Albert isn't around. So I watched it again, and now it's immensely important to me? Honestly, I don't even know. (I assume that no one else has seen this movie, but I'm like 70% sure that both the screenwriter and Paul Newman thought Harper was gay and spent a lot of time hinting at it throughout, often less than subtly.)
> 
> The "things with the Sampsons" refers to the events of the movie; Albert having been in the Canadian Air Force is alluded to there as well. The stuff about Harper being an ex-cop and once in military intelligence is from the incredible books by Ross MacDonald (in which the character is Lew Archer, not Harper). Susie exists in both universes, though she's not on screen in the books. The rest I made up.
> 
> Title from "Vampires," by The Midnight.
> 
> If there is anyone alive who wants to yell about this movie (or the sequel _Drowning Pool_ ), I am at queer-mac on Tumblr and am at your service.


End file.
